


and everything you do is super fucking cute (unlike your asshole best-friend, who will swim with the fish at the bottom of the sea if it’s the last thing I do)

by driedupwishes



Series: somewhere across the sea, somewhere waiting for me [3]
Category: Free!
Genre: 90 precent of this is Haru and Sousuke snarking at each other, Established Relationship, Haru is an childish asshole, M/M, but so is Sousuke, while Sousuke thinks cute and nice things about Makoto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2477015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driedupwishes/pseuds/driedupwishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Sousuke had realized that dating Makoto would mean becoming Haru’s part-time babysitter he would have thought twice about asking the broad shouldered, doe-eyed, fucking gorgeous and sweet and ridiculously amazing brown haired swimmer out on a date. He probably still would have asked the brown haired boy out for coffee, but that was because Makoto was the reason puppies wagged their tails. Nonetheless, however, he would have liked the chance to decide if his boyfriend was really worth standing knee deep in a public pool as he shouted at the top of his lungs while Haru sat at the deep end of the pool, holding his breath in an attempt to avoid doing more push-ups.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and everything you do is super fucking cute (unlike your asshole best-friend, who will swim with the fish at the bottom of the sea if it’s the last thing I do)

If Sousuke had realized that dating Makoto would mean becoming Haru’s part-time babysitter he would have thought twice about asking the broad shouldered, doe-eyed, fucking gorgeous and sweet and ridiculously amazing swimmer out. He probably still would have asked the brown haired boy out for coffee and he probably would have even gone the extra mile, making a fool of himself in his over eager attempt to kiss Makoto (which ended in a pair of hurt noses and the inability to look at the other boy’s face for half an hour, something Rin still teased him about), but that was because Makoto was the reason puppies wagged their tails. He was a fucking rainbow, making Sousuke smile on even the rainiest of days, and it was the most annoyingly adorable thing how all it took was a scattering of dates over the course of the past nine months before suddenly Sousuke was a goddamn poet. Nonetheless, however, he would have liked the chance to decide if his boyfriend was really worth standing knee deep in a public pool as he shouted at the top of his lungs while Haru sat at the deep end of the pool, holding his breath in an attempt to avoid doing more push-ups.

“Is this really fucking necessary,” Sousuke asked, head craned back to stare blankly at the ceiling. The life guard hasn’t bothered to give him a weird look in almost ten minutes, which was a little sad. They usually drew weird looks for about half an hour, but apparently the bored looking twenty-something sitting up in the chair wasn’t worried at all about the lunatic in the deep end who hadn’t come up for air in at least a minute.

Sousuke counted another twenty seconds in his head before he sighed and started to pull his t-shirt off. He wasn’t really dressed for swimming, but he couldn’t let Haru drown himself out of spite, which he would. Haru hated any training he couldn’t do in the water and did his best to put up the most horrific fight he could every time he was supposed to do something as fucking simple as push-ups or pull-ups. But before he could do much more than curl his fingers around the edge of his shirt Haru broke the surface of the water fifty feet away, gasping noisily as he did so.

“I wish they had let you drown as a child,” Sousuke shouted. It was probably a terrible thing to say and it made the bored looking life guard whip around to stare at him in confusion and a little horror, but Sousuke couldn’t care less. He was tired and hungry and Haru was going to get out of the fucking pool and do his sit-ups if it killed him.

Haru was lurking at the edge of the water, eyes the only thing visible, but at Sousuke’s words he threaded water further up to scowl at Sousuke from across the pool. “I’m telling Makoto you said that,” Haru called back. And it was childish and annoying, but it was also kind of funny. Makoto’s siblings were easier to get along with than Haru was.

“If you tell Makoto I said that, I’ll tell him I had to drag you bodily from the pool on my bad shoulder. And then I’ll call Rin to let him know you’re skipping on your training.”

Sousuke wasn’t above bribing or threatening children and Haru sure as fuck counted right then. Nearly nineteen years old his fucking ass, anyone who held their breath and scowled like that was automatically five. Across the pool from him Haru threaded water for another few seconds before huffing, the noise half made out of bubbles, before ducking back under the surface of the water.

“Oh come on,” Sousuke started to shout, but then he noticed the shape of Haru’s body underneath the water coming closer. “Son of a fucking bitch,” the larger dark haired boy yelped. He hurried to scramble out of the water before Haru could get to him, because he knew the pro-swimmer wasn’t above splashing him as he came up from the bottom of the pool.

Sure enough, just as Sousuke hopped backwards up the stairs and out of the shallow end of the pool Haru surfaced, water flinging in every direction like the most ridiculous and clumsy mermaid the world had ever known.

“Classy,” Sousuke said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms. Haru pouted a little bit, shoulders slumping back below the water, and Sousuke nearly threw himself back in the water to grab the smaller man by the scruff of his neck.

“You’re the one who started it,” Haru grumbled. He seemed to consider his chances of getting to stay in the pool and apparently came up with the correct answer that he wouldn’t get to fucking see the light of day if he did that. He stood, crossing his arms over his chest, probably to mimic Sousuke’s posture, and then ever so slowly started to wander out of the pool.

Sousuke seriously considered how annoyed his boyfriend would be if he showed up at dinner without Haru in tow. Makoto would be more disappointed than annoyed, probably, but then again that was sort of worse. If Rin was there he would have made a stupid noise with his mouth that was supposed to sound like a whip (but wouldn’t) and then would have spent a lot of time snickering and smirking at him. Of course if Rin had been there Nanase fucking Haruka wouldn’t have been Sousuke’s problem in the first place.

Sousuke probably should have apologized for the comment about drowning, because he knew how badly that had upset Makoto when they had been kids (or at least Rin and Makoto had both told him, Rin with more emotion than detail and Makoto with more detail than emotion), but most of his conversations with Haru were made up of snide remarks and supposed apologies on both sides. It helped that Haru wasn’t avoiding his eyes (the only tick of Haru’s he fucking understood, if he was perfectly honest), which meant that he hadn’t taken the comment to heart. Sousuke still felt the need to say something that wasn’t absolutely terrible, so he breathed a great sigh and dropped his head back to look at the ceiling.

“You’re getting better at holding your breath for the underwater portion of your swim,” Sousuke commented casually. Haru made a low sound in his throat and out of the corner of his eye Sousuke noticed the slimmer man start to walk a little faster. Compromises like this made dealing with Haru bearable.

“I’ll be in and out of the shower in a second,” Haru said as he took the stairs two at a time and trooped past Sousuke’s side. “Makoto’s probably already at the ramen shop and we shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

What also made Haru bearable was that he was just as intent on keeping Makoto happy as Sousuke was (in different ways, thank fuck, or Sousuke might have actually tied weights to his limbs and tossed him in the pool). So Sousuke shrugged, ignored the way the life guard was now watching them both with a befuddled expression and turned to go find a towel to dry his shins off with before he rolled his jeans back down.

True to his word Haru was in and out of the shower within a few minutes. Sousuke had just finished tying his shoes when the smaller man emerged, duffle bag hung over his shoulder, hands shoved in the middle pouch pocket of a hoodie Sousuke was pretty sure hadn’t originally belonged to him. In fact that hoodie looked a little bit like…

Sousuke sighed. “Stop stealing my hoodies, Nanase,” he grumbled, pushing forward so that he could lead the way out of the public gym. Haru trailed behind him, probably looking pleased with himself.

“Would you rather I steal Makoto’s jackets,” the bastard asked, all faux innocence, sugar sweet. Sousuke wanted to strangle him, because, actually, no, the last thing he wanted to see was someone else in Makoto’s jackets. Makoto’s jackets were his to steal and wear, because he was Makoto’s goddamn boyfriend.

(Sousuke was apparently more possessive than he had previously thought. Rin hadn’t seemed surprised when he mentioned this, simply snorting in the back of his throat, the noise nothing more than a burst of static across their Skype connection. Sousuke had been a little offended at the time, but that had slowly faded away as the months of dating the literal sweetest human being ever went on.)

“Why don’t you get Rin to mail you one of his,” Sousuke suggested, smirking widely. He peeked over his shoulder and enjoyed the way Haru’s shoulders bobbed up a little bit. The other man’s cheeks also went a little pink and it was with a great deal of amusement that Sousuke noticed Haru’s lower lip was stuck out in a pout.

“Winter’s pretty much over for them anyway,” Sousuke continued, turning back to face forward as they joined the night crowd walking on the sidewalk outside the gym. “He won’t be needing his hoodie for much longer.”

Haru didn’t say anything for the rest of the way to the ramen shop. It was only a few blocks away, so Sousuke only had a couple minutes of peace. Half of those minutes were spent with Haru bumping into him from behind, crowding closer and closer as the sidewalk traffic got crazier and crazier. It should have been annoying, but he was a little too used to Haru’s absent minded behavior by that point to bother getting heated up over the loss of personal space. Though it was still a little annoying that he had to fist his hand in the back of his own damn hoodie to keep the distracted fool from wandering off in the wrong direction when they turned a corner.

“I need a leash for him,” was the first thing he said to his boyfriend when they ducked under the curtain and into the ramen shop. Makoto jerked up from his textbook, glasses more than halfway down his nose, and Sousuke felt a warm swell of affection in him that wasn’t unlike the flush of heat from the stoves behind the bar. He dragged Haru toward the chair on Makoto’s right side, releasing the material of his own fucking hoodie to let the swimmer sit. Haru sat, still scowl-pouting at him, and then Sousuke was finally allowed to just sit down next to his damn boyfriend and relax.

“Sousuke called me mean names and wished me bodily harm,” Haru drawled, slumping against the counter. “He also wouldn’t let me swim in the pool.”

Sousuke opened his mouth to argue (argue what he wasn’t sure, but he’d figure it out), but Makoto sighed, more fond than annoyed, and smothered a laugh with his hand.

“If you didn’t get in the pool why is your hair wet?”

“I-“ Haru said, floundering a little. His scowl-pout got deeper and his cheeks went a little pinker. “Makoto-“

Makoto clicked his tongue at Haru before twisting around to shoot a twinkling grin at Sousuke. “Thanks for picking Haru up from the gym,” he muttered and Sousuke didn’t quite go completely limp, but it was a close thing. Haru made a face over Makoto’s shoulder that made Sousuke want to put his fist down the idiot’s throat until he choked to death. But then, because sometimes Sousuke was actually five too, he leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to Makoto’s lips.

Haru made a soft gagging noise beside them and Makoto pulled back, face flushing pink. Smirking smugly Sousuke settled against the bar, twisting so that his knee was pressed against Makoto’s leg. Haru was miming being violently ill up until the moment Makoto turned to pull him into a conversation about his day. The second Makoto twisted around to say something Haru’s face went through a complex series of lightning speed twitches before settling into a slightly tilted expectant look that said I wasn’t making fun of your loving relationship please tell me about your day friend. Sousuke had to swallow back his laugh, ducking his face down to rest against his chin against the broad span of Makoto’s shoulder.

His boyfriend smelled faintly like sweat, probably from being so close to everyone on the subway earlier in the day, but underneath that there was the scent that lingered on Sousuke’s sheets and pillow even after Makoto left. The busy nature of the street behind them faded away and the older boy hovered somewhere between being mush and man, slumping further and further against his boyfriend as the minutes passed.

When their food was ready Makoto buried his hand in Sousuke’s hair, dragging his nails along the taller man’s scalp lightly. Sousuke didn’t want to sit up, but he couldn’t eat while half on top of his boyfriend, so he pulled back with a little yawn.

“Tired,” Makoto asked. It was easy to read his expressions, because his eyebrows were drawn down and his nose scrunched a little bit like a rabbit’s when he was worried. Sousuke suppressed the urge to kiss him again and instead reached out, carefully sliding Makoto’s glasses back up his nose.

“Kinda,” Sousuke admitted. “Probably not as stressed as you, but I could use a nap.”

Haru snorted suddenly from Makoto’s other side, drawing their attention. “What an old fart,” he muttered, ducking his head toward his bowl in an attempt to hide his grin. “It’s not even nine o’clock and you’re already losing steam.”

It probably wasn’t nice of him to do, but Sousuke pulled out his phone without a second thought and pulled up his instant messaging app. Haru immediately looked a little cowed, eyes falling to the device in his hand while Makoto rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and muttered, “boys,” in a long suffering kind of way.

“What are you doing,” Haru asked, leaning over Makoto. He was swatted back into his own seat almost immediately, but by that time Sousuke was done typing out the message. He hit send, dropped his phone on the counter, and didn’t even flinch when Haru reached out, lightning quick, to scoop it up. The younger boy made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, eyes going wide and horrified.

“You told Rin, didn’t you,” Makoto asked, leaning over Haru’s shoulder to peer at the phone’s screen. And he had, telling the other swimmer that Haru was skipping out on his weight training and hiding in the public pool. Haru didn’t even have enough time to open his mouth before Sousuke’s phone started going crazy with a call, his ringtone almost deafening in the enclosed space. Haru blanched and tried to shove the phone back across Makoto and into Sousuke’s hands, but the dark haired boy leaned back and grinned, wide and a little mean.

“I’m just going to hand the phone to you after I answer anyway, so you might as well answer it.” He didn’t add the you fucking asshole on the end of the sentence like he wanted to, but that was mostly because Makoto was a lot more inclined to kiss him the less he swore at Haru. The smaller by gave the phone a sour look before he took a steeling breath and hit a button on the screen.

Rin didn’t need speaker phone to be heard; the second Haru hit the button his voice rang out loud and clear, echoing around the ramen shop so violently that one of the cooks looked up. Haru glanced at his bowl of ramen, sort of like he considered dropping the device in there to silence it, but Makoto clucked his tongue at him again and gave the other boy a little shove off his stool.

“If you’re fast your food will still be warm,” Makoto said cheerfully. Haru looked a little bit like he’d been stabbed in the back by the time he actually put the phone to his ear and shuffled out of the ramen shop with slumped shoulders and a tersely muttered utterance of Rin’s name.

Sousuke almost felt bad about what he’d done, but just as Haru ducked under the curtain, hand raised to move the cloth out of his eyes, the older boy caught sight of the small grin tucked into the corner of Haru’s mouth. He rolled his eyes and snorted quietly, turning back to his ramen. But then Makoto was smiling at him, lopsided and bright, and something low in the pit of his stomach was turning like the swells in the sea. He felt like he had been dragged out by the tide, swept into a current he has no desire to fight.

He wanted to lean forward, to mesh their mouths together, to tangle his fingers in Makoto’s hair and feel the other’s breath catch against his lips. But Makoto wasn’t a big fan of PDA, uncomfortable after the brief kiss at the beginning of their dinner, so Sousuke just did his best to smile back, chest aching with affection.

“Remind me to pester Rin into shipping Haru his hoodie,” Sousuke muttered. The person he had been two years ago would have been horrified at how soft he was in that moment, but that wasn’t a bad thing. He had been bitter and angry back then, but now he was content. He would never swim competitively, but Rin wasn’t going to be alone and he could help Haru achieve his dream instead. That was almost as good.

Besides that he had Makoto, which was so much better than busting his ass in a pool all day and reeking like chlorine for the rest of his life. Makoto who’s smile shined brighter than any gold medal, who’s little laugh at Sousuke’s words eased away his fatigue ten times faster than any of the heating pads he had used on his shoulder over the years.

“Stealing your clothes is Haru’s way of showing he likes you,” Makoto said, ducking his head to slurp up some of his noodles. Sousuke tried not to find his boyfriend adorable when a noddle slapped him on his chin, but he did.

“Yeah, but if he’s wearing my hoodies and I’m wearing your hoodies, who’s hoodies are you going to wear?”

Makoto turned an even more adorable shade of pink. He glanced away and then back, fast and sweet, before reaching down to entwine their fingers below the bar.

“I guess,” he muttered, glancing away. “I guess when you put it like that, getting Haru one of Rin’s hoodies doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.”

Makoto risked another kiss, just a peck on the crest of his boyfriend’s cheek. In response Makoto squeezed his fingers once before letting him go so that they could both return to eating. Sousuke didn’t realize that he couldn’t stop grinning until Haru came back, ears pink and scowl too exaggerated to be heartfelt.

“Wipe that dumb look off your face,” Haru muttered. He dropped down onto the stool on Makoto’s other side before sliding Sousuke’s phone back across the bar to him.

Sousuke could have made a snide comment about Haru’s face always looking dumb, but he decided to take the high ground instead. “How’s Rin doing,” he asked, perfectly innocent. Haru flushed a little red, grumbled something about Rin being completely annoying (“like someone else I know,” he added with a pointed look, earning himself another tongue cluck from Makoto), and then turned to try and inhale his ramen all in one bite. Sousuke was so disgusted he forgot to check that his phone was alright until hours had passed and Haru was already safely out of his reach.

The asshole had changed every contact in his phone (and his fucking apps) to the word “Mackerel”. There was even a picture of the dumb fish as the picture for every single contact. Sousuke wasn’t even sure how it was possible for the absolute pain in the ass to have done this to him in such a short amount of time.

“I’m going to kill your best friend,” he told Makoto when he finally found his boyfriend’s contact. “I’m going to free him from his human body so that he can be reincarnated as a fucking mackerel and finally live happily ever after.”

“To be fair, you did leave Haru unattended with your phone,” Makoto teased. Sousuke made some angry nonsense noise about how he was going to filet Haru’s remains and feed them to the fish in the bay as karmic revenge, which only made Makoto laugh even more.

It took him another hour after hanging up the phone with Makoto to find Rin’s number so that he could pester the red head into mailing his idiotic sort-of boyfriend one of his hoodies. In the end he left Haru’s contact as “Mackerel Asshole”, mostly because it made Makoto laugh every time he borrowed Sousuke’s phone and Sousuke, in the end of it all, would do anything if it made Makoto laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this between like 9pm on Monday and 3am on Tuesday, so technically it was for the first day of SouMako week on tumblr. The prompt was fluff or angst and I went for roundabout ridiculous fluff.
> 
> Also it's 90% Haru and Sousuke being dumb butts to each other because I find that cute.
> 
> Anyway I hope you all enjoyed!
> 
> (Also this could technically be considered the same universe as my Rin/Haru fic, so I'm adding it to that series. I keep meaning to write Sousuke introduction into that series, but it's fighting me, so sorry about that.)


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